The song cycle’s exploration of madness, death, sex and trauma redefined music – and singing. But how do you hiss, whisper and sing at the same time?

Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire broke the mould of what both chamber music and singing could be. Scored for five musicians playing eight instruments between them and a singer instructed not to sing, it was the perfect musical manifestation of expressionism, the cultural movement of the early 1900’s where creatives across the disciplines sought to capture the essence of emotions rather than physical realities.

The work’s 21 poems explore themes of madness, death, sex, dreams, trauma and nostalgia through the character of Pierrot and his partners in crime, Harlequin and Columbine. The music – one of Schoenberg’s earliest moves towards atonality (the absence of a key, as we’d understand it) – can feel unsettling and haunting, yet has moments of breathtaking beauty, calm and a heady dose of romanticism to boot. However, it is the singer’s employment of sprechgesang – literally speak-sing – that even 100 years later, can still sound completely out of this world.